Teen Titans NEXT
by Whitakker
Summary: The new generation of Teen Titans discovers a new ally...and reacquaints themselves with an old enemy who's been waiting to settle the score. Rated T for now. R&R appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

_So, this is my first real story. I recommend you first read "Son of Logan" to get acquainted with the character of Gene Logan, as well as my writing style._  
_ Huge thanks to EmeraldsAndDaggers for her help. Without her encouragement, I may not have written this at all._

_ Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, it belongs to DC Comics, and more specifically Marv Wolfman and George Perez. OCs are my own, however._

* * *

It was exactly forty-seven paces from his door to the elevator, then to the common room of the Titans Tower. If he was a cheetah, he could make the trip in twelve strides at half speed, or twenty-one hops if he chose a kangaroo. He never came up with a good reason why he decided to find out these things, but he'd made the journey in most all of his animal forms that were remotely practical. This morning, Gene Logan found his trek to the common room (in regular human form) a bit noisy as he neared the door, intent on starting his day with some waffles and grapefruit. He was greeted with the sight of a tall African-American boy with his arm held aloft, cereal box in hand, while a pint-sized hellion of a brunette was halfway to scaling the boy's body like an oak tree in an effort to grab aforementioned breakfast item.

"Come-_ON_, Marcus, gimme that! That's the last bowlful of it, and you know it's my favorite!"

"Only if you jump for it, Kitty. Breakfast tastes better when you work up an appetite first, y'know."

The brunette let loose a growl that sounded decidedly catlike, shot a death-glare at Marcus, but instead of clawing his arm to ribbons, leapt onto the counter with hardly any windup, and backflipped over Marcus, deftly snatching the box out of his hand before landing with all the grace of a gymnast. Marcus let "Kitty" have the victory, and they both knew he meant nothing hurtful by the game. She stuck her tongue out at him with a face, and Marcus returned to his oatmeal on the stove.

"Training isn't for another forty-five minutes, Kit, but it looks like you're ready to get to it right now," Gene remarked after witnessing the display of acrobatics by his colleague and friend.

"Kitty" rolled her wide amber eyes towards Marcus. "Marc always has to start _something_ in the morning. It's 'cause I'm short, isn't it Marc? What do you got against the vertically challenged?" Marcus said nothing, but began humming the bars of Randy Newman's "Short People" to himself, which earned him getting pelted with a piece of cereal thrown his way, courtesy of aforementioned short person.

Kitrina "Kitty" Falcone may have been short, but anyone who would judge her by height alone was in for a rude awakening. Kitrina carried her 5'4" frame with the sinuous flow of an acrobat, but with twice the curves of any Olympian. Her shoulder length auburn hair was kept back in a braid, with a small silver bell tied at the end for flair. Such an appearance was enough to make most young men trip over themselves, and Kitrina knew it. Heck, she prided herself on her feminine wiles, a natural talent that Selina hadn't had to do much to perfect. Yes indeed, Kitrina was not only the daughter of infamous crime boss Carmine Falcone, but the protégé of one Selina Kyle, the cunning Catwoman herself. To the public, Kitrina was Catgirl, slick and stealthy heroine of the Teen Titans.

Marcus Jennings was the youngest in the Tower, but paradoxically the tallest, overtaking Gene by an inch. His towering 6'1" body was built like a football running back, broad shoulders and powerful legs thick as tree trunks. His close clipped hair was dyed white and cut high and tight, just like his Marine father had it. His chocolate brown eyes were always smiling at a private joke, and his grin was always on the verge of revealing white teeth, just like now as he musically taunted Kitrina. He finished his oatmeal on the stove, moving it to a bowl, and crossed over to the breakfast table where Kitrina sat. Instead of pulling out a chair, Marcus extended his hand, and silver energy encased his fingers and spread out underneath him, coalescing into a silver stool upon which he sat himself down. Apparently, the H'San Natall had more than a few teens imbued with the silver plasma energy than just Argent, but in Marcus' case, it took an extra generation to manifest. Marcus thanked the heavens every day that Toni had found him and took him under her tutelage when he was younger and not entirely in command of his wondrous power. She was a surrogate mother to him in the absence of his biological one. With his father constantly overseas in the Marines, Argent was a wonderful support figure to Marcus, known to the world as SilverStar.

Which left the last person in the room: Gene Logan. Heading to the freezer to grab the frozen waffles, the young Titan couldn't suppress a chuckle at Marcus' needling. "And you wonder why you're still single, Marcus." Opening the fridge to grab some grapefruit wedges, he brushed his midnight blue hair out of his eyes, identical to the emerald hue his father possessed but with flecks of violet scattered throughout. Still in his sleeping pants and T-emblazoned compression shirt, he snatched some orange juice up along with the fruit, and headed over to his friends. Food in hand, he joined his teammates at the table and dove into breakfast, trying not to disturb Kitrina's now wire-thin temper from snapping at Marcus again. Full empath he may not be, but agitated emotions had a nasty habit of making Gene a bit dizzy.

The quick whistles of a high-velocity object in frantic movement sounded behind the table, and the trio of teens cast their eyes quickly over to Scott, who had already began frying up two eggs and bacon in a skillet that seemed to have materialized from nowhere, with the overhanging pot rack's slight swaying the only indicator that anything had been removed at all. Scott West was still half-asleep however, despite his actions just a second ago—oddly enough, he moved faster when he was still in the throes of the Sandman's influence. Yawning loudly, he flashed a quick and lazy smile to the trio. "Mornin', people," was his slightly slurred greeting.

Scott West was easily the most eye-catching person in the room, or in any other setting that didn't necessitate a superhero suit for that matter. The red hair was practically a requirement at this point for any man who wore the Lightning Bolt on his chest, but his status as the Tower's resident ginger was hardly his most striking feature. Even half-closed in drowsiness, his coral pink eyes could make anyone do a double-take upon seeing them once, and the feline slits for pupils could outright stop people in their tracks if they focused on them for more than a second. Such genetics would be impossible to believe if one didn't know Scott's parentage. Sure, the red hair was a West family heritage, but only those who knew that Scott's mother was the marble-skinned, pink eyed luck sorceress known to the public as Jinx could put two and two together and deduce that he was the result when you crossed his parents' genetic streams. Such an exotic looking young man was the latest to inherit the Flash legacy, and to the citizens of Jump City he was known as Quicktime.

While Gene was making a valiant effort to ignore the carnivore cooking dead animals behind him, Kitrina decided to simmer down and pipe up first, addressing Gene. "So, birthday boy…the big 1-8 today. How's it feel to be the old man in the Tower?" Her question was laced with a warm sense of mischief, and Gene suddenly felt pinned by those wide, feline-esque amber orbs. Forcing the red on his cheeks back down under his skin, he smiled back and shrugged noncommittally, downing a sip of OJ. "As long as my dad keeps his enthusiasm curbed and doesn't do anything stupendously obnoxious," _like always_, Gene added mentally, "I shall quietly enjoy the fact that the Earth has once again successfully navigated another full revolution around the Sun. I honestly thought it might careen into the big fireball this year, but gosh darn it, if it wasn't the Little Planet That Could all over again." His dry quip earned a sleepy chuckle from Scott, who was just now setting down his offending (to Gene, at least) breakfast at the table to join the team.

"At least you haven't lost that fine sense of humor on this most auspicious of days," Kitrina offered. "Are you sure you're your father's son? 'Cause that guy is as funny as a heart attack. I guess you're blessed with your mom's wit, then."

Gene grinned, letting a lengthened canine peek through his lips at the thought of watching his dad try with limited success to crack a joke witty enough for his mom to even snicker at_. And thank Azar for that blessing, too. How _has _my mom withstood that onslaught for all these years? _The rest of the meal was spent in companionable silence as four high-energy teens cranked up for another day of being heroes.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, sorry this took so long. It wasn't so much I didn't know what to write, but the architecture of this chapter was what got me. That, and a little thing called League of Legends. Nevertheless, here it is, the second chapter.

* * *

After breakfast was completed, training came next on the docket. The Titans' workout room hadn't changed much since the last generation, simply adapting itself to fit the regimen of its new inhabitants as needed. Gene liked to start on the treadmill for the beginning of the two hour session. Starting as a human, he steadily increased the speed until he was going at a respectable clip. He eyed the coming change on the odometer readout, anticipating the next tier. When it came, he shifted into a timber wolf, grey and black fur bristling from the sudden rise in physical exertion, paws pounding the track in a steady rhythm. After another short while, the speed ramped up again, and Gene shifted accordingly into a cheetah, not once breaking stride or hesitating, simply keeping a frantic pace with the treadmill. As the treadmill began its decrease in speed, Gene shifted once more into a roadrunner, then again into his human form once the speed reached achievable levels. Hopping off the machine, he casually stretched his limbs while observing his teammates in their morning workouts.

Kitrina had quite a varied regimen, one that was designed to keep her agility and physical talents sharp. The routine began with thirty minutes of yoga to focus both the mind and body. Garbed in only a pink tank top and black yoga pants, Kitty took to resembling a sculptor's living masterpiece in her positions, all sensuous curves and toned muscle defining themselves against the fabric of her outfit. It was a good thing the boys had long become accustomed to Kitty's state of dress in the workout room (or undress, as the case often was), otherwise no training would ever get done. After the yoga, Kitty moved on to a section of the room that had been outfitted with standard parallel bars. Leaping up to catch the middle in height of the three, she began her routine, spinning and revolving between the bars, always in kinetic motion as her body moved with and reacted to the momentum that gravity produced at that height. With a final twist around the high bar, she threw herself into the air, wheeling into a double backflip and alighted on the mat in perfect form, the bell on her braid jingling lightly against her back. It could be argued that Kitrina had somehow learned to always land on her feet just like a cat could innately; her sense of balance was on par with the most graceful of the feline realm.

After her '10' dismount, Kitty donned a pair of fighting gloves, and looked to Gene, nodding him over. Taking the cue, Gene grabbed a pair of wide padded target gloves and put them on, joining Kitty on the mat. Taking their stances, Gene assisted Kitty in a sparring session where she went through standard tae kwon do combinations. The fighting style specialized in lightning fast kicks and acrobatic spins, which melded with Kitty's athleticism perfectly into a formidable display of martial prowess. She feinted, wove, and ducked in and around Gene's strikes, and her feet and ankles met the pads on his hands with resounding slaps as they connected with blinding speed and accuracy. The violent yet graceful dance continued in a staccato rhythm for another half hour, until Kitty actually managed to spin kick the pads right off of Gene's hands, much to his surprise and Kitty's delight. A quick fist-bump and a smile were his silent congratulations for her efforts.

While Gene and Kitty toweled off the perspiration, Marcus was in his own head space at the weight bench, methodically lifting the impressively laden barbell to a steady beat only he could hear. For Marcus, two things determined his abilities' powers; physical strength and mental focus. Training his body to withstand heavy loads served to help him in how quickly and effortlessly he could manifest his silver plasma constructs with his focus, whether it be creating a giant mace or an impenetrable shield—the stronger he was physically, the more stress his constructs could endure without faltering. With his eyes fixed on a speck on the ceiling, his repetitions wound down. Behind the bench stood Scott as the spotter, who took the bar in his hands upon Marcus' completion of his set to replace it in the bench's rack.

Scott's workout this morning was mental in nature, where he had spent the last half hour calmly meditating, an activity that was unheard of in the West family tradition of superheroes. But like Gene, no matter how much Scott leaned towards his father's traits, his mother still had gifted him with some abilities of her own blood, thus necessitating the need to understand and be in control of what powers of probability manipulation he possessed. The meditation he underwent was little more than breathing exercises and recitations of a mantra that Jinx had taught him from childhood. Together with Raven's input, Scott was as calm as a morning pond while meditating. To this day, however, Scott could not willfully execute spells and hexes the way his mother could; not consciously, anyway. Things did have a certain uncanny propensity for going his way in combat, however—bullets aimed at him never _quite_ seemed to maintain straight trajectories, random bits of broken battlefield just _happened _to get in the way of any bad guy's attempt to do Scott in…

…Oh yeah, and Scott always seemed to roll the exact dice needed to land on and claim Boardwalk, as well as avoid all his teammates' hotel-laden properties in "Monopoly." Needless to say, board games with Scott West were a recipe for one's fictional financial demise.

Eventually, all the young heroes were finished with their cool-down routines, went to shower off, and suited up for another day of defending Jump City, ready, willing and able to stand between the citizens and whatever or whoever decided to try their hand at villainy.

After cleaning up and suiting up for the duty day, the team entered the multi-purpose common room of the Tower. Housing the kitchen, living room, and communications terminal, most of the action went down in the spacious area with a floor-to-ceiling window view of the bay, with Jump City gleaming in the midday sun. One by one the team settled in to their standby routine. Marcus switched on the big-screen television to the local news, settling in to the sofa with long legs crossed. Kitty sat cross-legged at the foot of the sofa, redoing her braid that she had to let out during her shower. Scott rummaged through the fridge looking for something suitable for his "second breakfast"—his lightning fast metabolism demanded he eat like a hummingbird in order to stay energized. Gene made his way over to the terminal, prepared to sift through any overnight reports sent to them from either the JLA, the local authorities, or any other sources.

No sooner had he set down in the chair, the terminal monitor flashed "INCOMING CALL." Gene checked the caller ID, and found it was one of the JLA's mobile communicators, which meant that the call was coming from a hero on the move. Hitting the button to accept, the screen was immediately filled with a smiling green face, much to Gene's surprise and embarrassment_. I should have known he'd call on my birthday…_, Gene groused mentally.

"Heeeeey, big guy! How's my lean, mean, shapeshiftin' machine on the big Twenty-One? Y'know you can legally adopt pets now, right?"

Garfield Logan, known as "Changeling" to the public, was a far cry from the fresh-faced teenager he was during his days as a Titan. Now in his early forties, his eyes had a few more laugh lines around them, his jawline was sharper and straighter, and his hair was kept to a professional length (though keeping it tidy was a virtual impossibility). His emerald eyes, his gift to Gene, still hadn't lost that jokester's glint to them, which made him look younger than he was. Even still, Garfield Logan looked hardly any worse for wear being the age he was.

"…Hi, dad," Gene breathed out, inwardly preparing himself for his father's overzealous antics. "And owning a pet is kinda redundant in my case, don'tcha think?" His father's sense of humor had long since ceased to elicit anything more than a wry smirk, and this one was particularly low-hanging fruit, in his opinion. To Gene's chagrin, the interruption of his father had drawn everyone's attention, and Kitty was the first one to pipe up in response to the lame joke.

"C'mon, Gene, a pet wouldn't be such a drag around here, would it? I bet you're just jealous of the idea of me scratching behind anyone else's ears but yours, am I right?" Kitty sauntered up behind Gene's chair and tousled his hair, prompting Gene to feebly swat her hands away while trying to hide the sudden flush on his cheeks. Receiving his baleful glare with a flirtatious wink, she threw a smile over to the green man on the screen. "Hey Mr. Logan, where ya headed?"

"See, Gene, someone who shares my enthusiasm for neglected animals! Kitty, you're a beacon of humanity to my son's dreary heartlessness towards his fellow bestial brethren."

From off-screen, a monotone yet arresting voice interjected. "Gar, stop antagonizing my only child on his birthday." The monitor zoomed out from just displaying Garfield's figure (who was behind the wheel of a car, no less) to reveal a porcelain-like face with midnight blue hair and violet eyes. Gene's mother, Raven Roth-Logan, comported herself like a sage, even face and wise eyes greeting the sight of the team in the Tower. She, like her husband, hardly looked her age (though in her case, she had her half-demon heritage to credit for her overall youthful appearance), but closer inspection revealed the intangibles that spoke of a person who had seen and lived through much in her time. Her silken hair had grown to her shoulders, only visible now that she had her hood down, and her fair, ashen-colored skin had nary a blemish to it. Nonetheless, she projected an aura of maturity that made one realize her seniority over others, even if she looked barely older than thirty. Breaking her officious gaze at Garfield, she turned to Gene, and graced the team with a rarely seen smile meant for her son.

"Happy birthday, Eugene." Raven's gentle voice instantly brought Gene down from his building irritation at his father, and he smiled back at his mother.

"Thanks, mom…but did you have to use my full name?" Gene added the last part with an arched brow.

"I'm the one who named you, why shouldn't I use it?," retorted Raven evenly.

"Because it makes him sound like a stuffy college professor, maybe?" Marcus' introduction to the discussion was met with a narrowed stare from Raven, and a roll of the eyes from Gene. Sufficiently cowed by Raven's analytical gaze, Marcus retreated quickly. "Hehe, just kiddin' around, Mrs. Logan. No offense meant, y'know?" A twist of her lips was Raven's silent reply, which Marcus considered a victory. Raven was a much more even-tempered person nowadays, but everyone knew full well she didn't see humor in very much, unburdened emotional range or not.

Raven turned her attention to Kitty. "In answer to your question, Kitrina, we're about ten minutes away from the Tower. Gar wanted to surprise our son here with a birthday party."

"Awesome, you guys bringing any food with you?," Scott yelled over his shoulder, his head now stuck in the pantry in his foraging.

"We got a cake in the back seat. Kori wanted to make you guys something, too. I persuaded her that sending her best wishes on your twenty-first was gift enough." Garfield grinned as he watched the teenagers' faces squirm at the thought of enduring Tamaranean food. Starfire was as wonderful a friend and mentor as the team could ask for, but her grasp of the culinary arts was still as "exotic" as ever. "You owe me one, kiddos."

Raven continued for her husband, "We'll be there shortly, though we can't stay long. Watchtower wants us back for a planning session at three o'clock. Dick had to convince Batman to even give us this short time off-duty." The empath punctuated her statement with a roll of the eyes.

As Gene was about to reply, the monitor was overtaken by a blaring "ALERT" icon, and the view of Gene's parents was relegated to the corner of the screen. A ticker flashed by on the screen, informing the Titans of trouble in Jump City. Gene's smile instantly vanished, replaced with a set of laser-focused eyes and a furrowed brow. Gar and Raven thought it bore a striking resemblance to Dick's expression back whenever they got a call as Titans. The young heroes sprang to attention, scanning over the alert along with Gene, who made the announcement.

"We've got trouble."

"Whad'dya got, kid?," was Garfield's inquiry, his face as concerned as his son's. Raven's response was to put her hair in a ponytail and pull her hood up, anticipating some action.

"We've got a two-for-one special today; Plasmus is ransacking City Hall, but it looks like he's got a crew of thugs with him as well handling him. Quite a crowd, by the looks of it."

"Sounds like a handful. We'll rendezvous with you in fifteen at location."

"You two run perimeter and crowd control; lot of panic down there. My team will deal with Plasmus." Gene threw a quick smile at his parents before ending the video call. "Don't park somewhere my cake will get crushed, 'kay?"

Before Garfield could retort, the call ended. Gene got up and turned to his team, checking their gear as they awaited the two magic words.

"Titans, Go!"

* * *

A.N.: If you're wondering why I spent so much time on something so mundane as training, I thought it best to describe how they train so you get a feel for how they perform in combat. If you've got other questions, feel free to ask them in the Reviews. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.


End file.
